By Randal Kleiser

Randal Kleiser (blue shirt in center) at the Malaga Film Festival Master Class

In the beginning of June, the Foundation of Authors of Spain and the cultural organization of the City of Malaga invited members of the Directors Guild of America and Writers Guild of America to the Malaga Film Festival to teach Master Classes to film students from the local university. 

Jonathan Lynn and I represented the Directors Guild and Edward Pomerantz (Caught) and Scott Alexander (Man in the Moon) represented the Writers Guild.

Lynn showed his film My Cousin Vinny and told the students that America has become the New Roman Empire of Cinema. All countries in Europe are exposed in movies to American culture, but in America, we are not exposed to English, French, Italian or Spanish culture in our local cinemas. Europeans see American culture romanticized. 

Lynn spoke about how, as a foreigner, he was able to see things that most Americans would take for granted. For instance, in the American South when shooting Vinny, he spotted and photographed handmade signs for "Free Dirt" and "Manure for Sale." He cited Midnight Cowboy, directed by fellow Englishman John Schlessinger, as a good example of a foreigner's view of America.

He also spoke about being directed by Orson Welles, who, when asked for his three favorite directors, replied, "John Ford, John Ford and John Ford." When asked why, he answered that Ford never moved the camera, but instead formed brilliantly composed static shots. Lynn, confused, pointed out to Welles that he was constantly moving the camera. "I'm not John Ford," stated Welles.

Edward Pomerantz showed Caught, based on his novel Into It, and directed by Robert M. Young. He went through his process of adapting his novel to screenplay and some of the challenges of getting it made. He related his process of writing intuitively, rather than following a rigid three-act structure that is taught in screenwriting courses.

I showed scenes from my film Getting It Right featuring the late John Gielgud and spoke about working with him. I discussed the difficulties of mounting animal-action sequences and working with trained wolves in White Fang. I also analyzed the process we went through in coming up with new songs for the movie to replace ones from the stage play Grease.

Scott Alexander showed clips from Ed Wood that illustrated how research can add layers to a scene. During his preparation, he and his writing partner Larry Karaszewski found that Bela Lugosi had turned down the role of Frankenstein, which led to a long career for Boris Karloff. In the scene in Ed Wood where Martin Landau is standing in the swamp, about to wrestle the limp octopus, they inserted a speech of him reflecting on how his career could have been different had he accepted the role of Frankenstein.

We also attended a press conference with the Spanish directors and writers attending the festival. The topic was the differences and similarities between Hollywood and Spanish Cinema. There was also a discussion of how European filmmakers are able to retain the copyright to their work, and how the American directors are attempting to do the same.

All of us - directors, writers, American, British and Spanish - agreed unanimously that we would prefer to see our films subtitled rather than dubbed. (Germany, France, Spain and Italy routinely dub all foreign films.) We also all agreed on the obvious; lower budgets give you more freedom.

At the end of the festival, the Americans, speaking in phonetic Spanish, appeared live on national television to participate in handing out awards to the filmmakers.